Grill'd Bunless Burgers

At Grill'd, there's a bunless option. It sounds like bad value 'cause you're paying the same price and not getting the bun. However, it turns out the bunless option is just as filling as with the bread (especially if you also want chips), since the bun is not a filling component of the meal anyway.

This is the bacon and cheese burger. The great thing about having the sauce on the side instead of inside a sandwich is that you can have as much or as little as you want (and it's a LOT of sauce, but having worked in a fast food restaurant myself I know they actually put that amount in the burgers!! This is especially a concern with a high fat sauce like aioli).

The zucchini chips sound like a good alternative to potato, but with the batter they put on the zucchini, they are actually almost as high in kilojoules as their potato counterparts and don't even taste as good (waaaay to salty, and kind of slimy tasting if the batter falls off).

In conclusion, even though restaurant bun-free burgers are better than I expected, the ones I made at home were just as good. I have mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup etc at home that need to be used up too!

Mad Mex Naked Burrito

This is a decidedly low carb, low fat meal. It's essentially a burrito without the tortilla, cheese or sour cream. All the things that would give it flavour, right? Yes and no. I figured that since most restaurants use everything they can to make everything as flavoursome as possible, I couldn't really go wrong with ordering something more boring. And I was right: the steak is heavily flavoured and the pinto beans are salty. This is enough to balance out the blandness of the rice and lettuce. The only thing that I disliked was that the rice tasted stale. But rice is difficult to keep fresh in a fast food restaurant. Rating: 8/10.